Furious cries interrupted Father d’Aigrigny.
“Ciboule, make an end of that one!” cried
the quarryman, spurning Goliath with his foot.
“I will begin this one!” And he seized
Father d’Aigrigny by the throat.

At these words, two different groups formed themselves.
One, led by Ciboule, “made an end” of
Goliath, with kicks and blows, stones and wooden shoes;
his body was soon reduced to a horrible thing, mutilated,
nameless, formless—­a mere inert mass of
filth and mangled flesh. Ciboule gave her cloak,
which they tied to one of the dislocated ankles of
the body, and thus dragged it to the parapet of the
quay. There, with shouts of ferocious joy, they
precipitated the bloody remains into the river.
Now who does not shudder at the thought that, in a
time of popular commotion, a word, a single word,
spoken imprudently, even by an honest man, and without
hatred, will suffice to provoke so horrible a murder.

“Perhaps it is a poisoner!” said one of
the drinkers in the tavern of the Rue de la Calandre—­nothing
more—­and Goliath had been pitilessly murdered.

What imperious reasons for penetrating the lowest
depths of the masses with instruction and with light—­to
enable unfortunate creatures to defend themselves
from so many stupid prejudices, so many fatal superstitions,
so much implacable fanaticism!—­How can we
ask for calmness, reflection, self-control, or the
sentiment of justice from abandoned beings, whom ignorance
has brutalized, and misery depraved, and suffering
made ferocious, and of whom society takes no thought,
except when it chains them to the galleys, or binds
them ready for the executioner! The terrible
cry which had so startled Morok was uttered by Father
d’Aigrigny as the quarryman laid his formidable
hand upon him, saying to Ciboule: “Make
an end of that one—­I will begin this one!”

[40] This fact is historical. A man was murdered
because a phial full of ammonia was found upon him.
On his refusal to drink it, the populace, persuaded
that the bottle contained poison, tore him to pieces.